THAT deaths of Bangladeshi migrant workers have increased steadily in the past 13 years is alarming. At least 33,112 migrant workers, as New Age reported on Monday, had died abroad for different reasons during this period. As Bangladesh Occupational Safety, Health and Environment Foundation, a labour rights promoting non-government organisation, revealed on Sunday in the capital, some of them had died because of lack of workplace safety. But a significant number of deaths took place because of stroke and heart attack. However, most of the dead were young aged between 25 and 35, while it is unnatural for such a high number of people to fall victim to such kind of deadly diseases at the age. Diseases such as stroke and cardiac arrest generally do not grow overnight. Moreover, all migrant workers have to undergo different medical tests as part of checking their fitness for the jobs they have been selected for before leaving home.
One cannot, of course, rule out different rights bodies’ assumption that the workers may have died abroad because of excessive physical and mental stress they usually have to suffer for various reasons, including low wages, heavy debt burden and unfriendly workplace atmosphere. It is important to note that most Bangladeshi workers seeking overseas jobs are poor and unskilled, because of which they usually get low-paid jobs in different destination countries. On the other hand, they generally have to pay high for the migration for different reasons, including the tendency of recruiting agencies to make quick money, while the cost is mostly collected through either selling homesteads or borrowing from others at high interest rates. Overall, the poor workers have to find ways to recover the migration cost as early as possible falling victim to gratuitous physical and mental pressure. Meanwhile, the government is yet to commence with a mechanism to hold post mortem examinations before burying the migrants’ bodies, despite repeated demands from rights bodies. If such a mechanism had been there, the actual causes of deaths of the migrant workers could be identified, which would also help the government to take measures to address the reasons for the untimely deaths of such a large number of people every year.
One has reasons to believe that all this is a manifestation of successive governments’ general apathy to migrant workers’ woes. In any case, the government is constitutionally bound to take care of all citizens, including those working abroad. It needs to realise that there were many among the deceased in question, who were the lone bread-earners of the families concerned. What all concerned need to ponder over is that if the situation is allowed to prevail for long, it may discourage people from finding out jobs abroad leaving an adverse impact, particularly on the annual remittance inflow that the country badly needs for keeping the economy functioning smoothly. Also, rights bodies need to mount pressure on the government to seriously look into the matter.
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